chasing our way through the constellations
by hulklinging
Summary: Teddy learns how to measure his life, in seasons and stars.


They meet on a bright day in early fall, one of those days where you can't even be mad is September and therefore the start of school because the air is crisp and tastes like possibilities on your tongue.

The boy Teddy meets looks like possibilities, like a dream, like something new. He sits down on the bench next to Teddy, all sheepish smiles and apologies at the ready.

"Just got here," he says, as Teddy looks over his map, trying to help him find his dorm. "Haven't quite figured out where everything is yet."

Teddy's not sure if he means the school or the city or the country, because he's got just the hint of an accent and a strange sort of naivety that should have grated at Teddy's nerves (he grew up with a single mom until he didn't, he learned to do a lot of things for himself, to the point that friend his age who can't do their own laundry or feed themselves because they claim they don't know how get on his nerves almost instantaneously), but somehow comes off as charming in those brown eyes, quick mouth. Billy is so full of strange, uncommon know how that it seems a fair trade, teaching one another. A recipe for how to knit a beanie. Laundry for folding paper into cups and envelopes. Billy's hands are constantly moving, twitching, creating, and Teddy finds it harder and harder to look away.

Billy has long conversations over the phone in a language Teddy doesn't recognize, and sometimes he offers Teddy a scarf made out of a fabric he's never seen before. It sits on his neck like stars and always feels the slightest bit warm. Teddy buries his face into the gift and bites his tongue to hold back the questions. He isn't one to look something that isn't quite a horse in the mouth, and maybe the warmth is imagined, mimicking the feelings in his ribcage whenever Billy is around.

Billy goes home for Christmas, comes back with a tattoo that stretches over one hip. It looks like deep space, and when Teddy sees it for an instant, as Billy takes off a swatter and his shirt rides up, he can swear it moves.

Teddy's gift of his first knit scarf, lumpy and lopsided, seems pale in comparison. But Billy unwraps it and gasps, treating it like spun gold.

Teddy is burning up from the inside, melting more and more whenever Billy is nearby. One of these days, Teddy feels like he'll open his mouth and have pure sunshine spill out, especially as the world around him begins to melt into a glorious spring.

He means to tell Billy how he feels, really, but spring is busy, and exams creep up on him, and then he's out the other side and onto junior year and he hasn't seen Billy in almost two weeks.

Billy opens the door to his dorm with a blinding smile, and Teddy is about to shout 'I love you' right there in the hall when he sees the half full box behind Billy.

"Are you… Leaving?" Teddy knows his panic is showing, but he can't help it. Billy walked into his life on a fall day and now he's going to leave it just as easily, and Teddy feels like he suddenly can't breathe.

"I was only here for one year." Billy moves to let him inside, and he walks past him like he's in a daze, collapses on Billy's bed, already stripped of blankets and sheets. A bare frame. Like how Teddy's feeling right now, if he's being honest with himself. Stripped bare. Naked, not like a fantasy but some nightmare.

Billy's looking at him with no small amount of concern. "...Teddy? I'm here as an exchange student. I thought you knew that?"

Teddy shakes his head.

"... exchange student from where?"

Billy blushes, and Teddy thinks about how much Billy has taught him in these past few months, how little he's actually talked about things like family and a home.

"About that… Close your eyes and hold out your hands?"

Teddy blinks at him. He feels like Billy's taken his whole life and sent it spinning like a top.

"Please?"

Teddy can't deny those eyes anything.

He does as he's told. There's the sound of a drawer opening and closing, some rustling, and then something cold and soft is poured into his hands.

"You can open your eyes." Billy's voice is hushed, full of reverence. Teddy opens his eyes, and can't help but look at Billy, before he glances down.

Billy's eyes are full of stars, a galaxy contained inside a boy. It's the most beautiful thing Teddy's ever seen. Billy smiles, shy and a little lost, like that first day on their bench, and Teddy looks down to see he is holding a constellation in his cupped hands.

He means to ask 'What are you,' but what falls from his lips is more like a prayer.

"You're beautiful."

Billy laughs, and it sounds like bells, like echoes in space. Teddy runs his hand over what he's holding, sees they're actually scales, every new angle revealing another constellation.

Teddy licks his lips, tries again.

"Where are you from, Billy Kaplan?"

"I was hoping," Billy hums, his own voice hoarse. "I could show you."

Summer is a special season. Almost magical. Teddy's favourite since he was young. This summer is something else entirely. It's swimming between stars, learning how love songs sound in space (just as cheesy as ever, but Teddy can't bring himself to mind). It's seeing Billy for real, tail cutting through stardust as he shows off his true form, a species whose name Teddy still can't pronounce (he doesn't have enough teeth nor tongue) but Billy teasingly describes as space mermaids. Here, in the ocean between planets, they dance and dream and fall in love, and it's all a little too perfect, Teddy worries, until Billy tells him that's only natural, because if just a wish on a star can bring happiness than what does living amongst them mean?

Teddy wears the scales across one wrist and the scarf around his neck, heart on his sleeve and love in his eyes. And at night, they fall asleep to the sound of the stars singing in tongues they can almost understand.


End file.
